Energy and Commerce a refuge from ethanol ire

Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) said the plan is to hold at least one hearing on the renewable fuels mandate this summer, but a decision hasn’t been made to try to move a bill through the panel.

“We don’t know if we’re going to have legislation or not,” Whitfield said. “There’s so many different views, we just wanted to give everybody the opportunity to focus on it and then we’ll make some decisions.”

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Panel leaders are completing a final white paper looking at renewable identification numbers, which document compliance with the biofuel mandate but have become the subject of widespread fraud. The price of RINs skyrocketed from pennies on the gallon to, briefly, more than $1 a gallon earlier this year, adding another wrinkle to the escalating war over the mandate.

While that fight is being waged off the Hill, the conversation among lawmakers so far has been merely simmering.

“We’re not out there really advocating because we know we’ve bought into the process on our committee, that it’s a fact-based approach and we’re going to see what comes from that,” Terry said.

He also said he and his allies aren’t spending a lot of time “trying to talk Texans or Louisianans out of hating ethanol,” noting that “we know we’re not really going to accomplish that.”

“But maybe we can work at more of a leadership level to make sure that if there is going to be some biofuel bill on the floor that it just not be an emotional ‘Let’s kill ethanol because we hate it,’” he said.